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The retired primary school teacher – who describes his age as “59 plus” – is preparing to go back to Middle Earth, attending the Brisbane premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tomorrow night at Chermside Events Cinema.

He and more than 30 other Tolkien fans will attend in costume.

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“I think I'll wear my red Hobbit party coat,” he declares.

He's already sporting a green Fellowship badge pinned to his linen vest, and a golden ring inscribed with Elvish glitters on a chain around his neck.

For Mr Kenny, collecting all things Tolkien has been a serious business since he first read the stories in 1976.

“I liked the adventure of it, but there was also something more,” he says.

“It's a story about heroism, in which the little guy is important, the little guy ends up saving the world.”

Since then, he's amassed a remarkable collection of special edition and foreign language books, maps, posters, artworks, figurines, pewter goblets, chess sets and movie memorabilia signed by the stars of Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Lego has even sent him An Unexpected Gathering, one of its kits designed to tie in with the release of the movie The Hobbit.

His pride and joy is his Hobbit Hole, which he pulls the covers off with great delight.

The cut-down doll's house is a miniature Bag End, the home of The Hobbit's hero, Bilbo Baggins.

“It was made by an English artist, and she individually wrapped all the little decorations and possessions when she posted it out to me,” Mr Kenny says.

“It came with a guide describing where everything goes – look, there's Bilbo's map,” he says, pointing at a tiny piece of yellowing paper no bigger than a 50¢ piece.

Mr Kenny travels frequently overseas to give lectures as a Tolkien specialist, talking about the author's life and career as an Oxford English professor, and his friendships with other literary greats, including the Chronicles of Narnia author C.S. Lewis.

One of his pieces is a 1937 newspaper that contains the very first published review of The Hobbit.

“Although it doesn't name who the reviewer was, history tells us it was C.S. Lewis,” says Mr Kenny. “They used to look after each other, those guys.”

He says he's trying to inject a similar bond back into Australia's disparate Tolkien fan clubs, to try to raise the profile of the genre.

And he has grand plans for his Hobbit Hole.

As founder of the Fortinbras Proudfoot Esq Foundation (Fortinbras Proudfoot is his Tolkien nom-de-plume, which he uses to write tribute poems and stories), he wants to spread the joy of reading and the fantasy genre, and is looking for a sponsor to help him transport the bulky Hobbit Hole to schools.

“Books are written to encourage our imagination,” he says.

“This is where movies fall down. A movie takes that creativity of imagination away from you, and I think a lot of kids these days are stuck in a world where imagination is made for them.”

And so he has some minor quibbles with Peter Jackson's films (“Why did they give Gimley a Scottish accent and turn him into a comedian?”), but overall is a fan, and is expecting to feel the same shivers of anticipation when the cinema lights dim for The Hobbit, just as he did in 2001 when The Fellowship of the Ring screening began.

“These are adaptations of the book, they are not meant to be the book, and changes will be made,” he says, adding that people who have huge problems with the films forget that artists have been painting different pictures of Tolkien's world for 50 years.

“This movie is by an artist working in technology – instead of painting single images, he's painting moving pictures. Get over it, guys.”

Peter Kenny will give a talk on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at Chermside Library on Saturday January 5. His website is here.